Build new life on a mountaintop

In villages perched high on a mountain in western Yemen, residents are a safe distance from a conflict raging through most of the country, but they endure a hardscrabble existence little changed from hundreds of years ago.

Most of Yemen's population lives in the countryside, a disparate patchwork of deserts, mountains and scrubland where even in peacetime the writ of the government and the benefit of its services barely runs.

Long used to a livelihood without electricity or running water, they have felt little impact from the 18 months of civil war which have cut those essential services to many of Yemen's 28 million people.

Majid Abdullah al-Ayashi, 14, regularly plies this misty 1,200-metre span in the rusty metal box along with produce and other basic goods which he then carries further uphill to his village on the Dhalamlam mountain.

"It really hurts my back. I wish there was another solution to move the goods because the elevator isn't safe and could lead to a fall," the child lamented.

"Despite the difficulty of life, we're still living here, just as our fathers and our ancestors did. We grow coffee and grain like they did, and we've grown accustomed to this life with all its cruelty and extreme hardship."